VAYESHEB: Faith requires patience

YOSEF, THE MANAGER

Yosef was sold by his brothers and transported to the slave market in Egypt, where Potiphar, a minister in Pharaos court, acquired him. In Potiphar’s house, Yosef stands out. His master realizes that the slave he had bought for manual labor was a genius at administration. And he also inspired trust. Potiphar leaves all his assets and household, probably hundreds of people, in the hands of Yosef. Seemingly, Yosef had found his final destination; even though he was away from his family, at least he was in a privileged position. Being promoted to “manager” was the ultimate dream, the utopia, of any slave. However, got worse for Yosef. Potifar’s wife provokes him. But Yosef does not succumb, and he rejects her advances with great subtlety but firmness. He tried to reason with the woman and explained to her that what she wanted to do would be a great sin against her husband and, above all, against God. “How could I do something so wrong and sin against God” (Gen. 39:9). But Potiphar’s wife did not take Yosef’s rejection well: she felt offended that a man, a slave under her command! rejected her. And she falsely accused Yosef of abuse. Potiphar, I think, did not believe his wife – if he had, he would have killed Yosef on the spot – but he could not ignore her and had to save his family’s honor, so he sent Yosef to a dungeon.

YOSEF, IN AND OUT OF PRISON

Yosef’s situation is now desperate. His sentence is for life. Yosef goes from being a successful manager with privileges to the lowest level a human being could reach in Egypt: a slave sentenced to prison. In Egypt, the value of a slave’s life was probably less than that of a horse or a dog. What can be said then about the insignificant value of a slave in prison? However, thanks to his personality and hardworking character, Yosef also wins the trust of the head of the prison, who, like Potifar, leaves the administration in the hands of Yosef.

Yosef takes care of two VIP prisoners, Pharaoh’s ministers. Both had very strange dreams. And Yosef, who knew a lot about dreams, tells one of the two ministers, the one in charge of Pharaoh’s beverages (making sure that the drinks were not poisoned), that he was going to be released and restored to court. And Yosef takes advantage of this fortuitous circumstance and asks the minister to remember him, and as payback for interpreting his dream positively, he begs him to tell Pharaoh, through one of his officers, to release Yosef from prison, since he is innocent!

A HAPPY END

But as the days or weeks go by, Yosef realizes his hope is a fantasy. Pharaoh’s minister forgot Yosef and consciously erased him from his memory. Because, naturally, the last thing the minister would have wanted was something to remind his boss — who had given him a second chance — of his days in jail! One day, however, Pharaoh has a disturbing dream, and no one can interpret it. At that moment, the minister –knowing that now he was not “asking” but “doing” Pharaoh a favor– informs him that there is a young Hebrew man in jail who knows how to interpret dreams. Yosef is brought into the palace and then, as we all know, becomes Pharaoh’s right-hand man, which allows him to identify his brothers and eventually reconcile with them.

WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF…?

One of the great life lessons that Yosef’s story teaches us is that we often desperately want something to happen NOW. We pray and beg HaShem and do everything we can to achieve it… and in the end, it might NOT happen. But after a while, we might be looking at our lives and realize that THANKS TO WHAT WE WANTED TO HAPPEN AND DID NOT HAPPEN, we now have a better opportunity, or we are now in a better position!

Yosef desperately wanted Pharaoh’s minister to exert all his influence to get out of prison. I suppose that Yosef must have waited impatiently day and night for someone to come and get him out of jail on behalf of Pharao’s minister. But imagine for a second if that had happened: Yosef would be now out of jail, with no money, no family, and with the record of an ex-convict slave. He could not have gotten very far…. He would have been sold as a slave a second time. And in the best of cases scenario, he would have ended his life being a good slave manager in someone’s household. The same would have happened if Potiphar’s wife would not have accused Yosef of improper behavior.

PATIENCE AS A FORM OF FAITH

Yosef learns and teaches us that patience is a form of Emuna, faith. Because many times, things that happen or are not happening to us are eventually for our own good. All the negative experiences that Yosef lived at first made him get lower and lower, to the point of despair. But when Yosef hits rock bottom unexpectedly, and without Yosef ever dreaming of such a scenario, Yosef’s life improves meteorically.

Not all of us have the same privilege as Yosef. It is not always possible to see an excellent final resolution for all our problems in life. However, this lesson is so important. I hear virtually every day of someone who did not get the job he so much wanted or someone who failed in a potential shidduch date or in a business deal. We might feel then that God has abandoned us. But then, I hear many people saying, “thanks to the fact that what I so much wanted didn’t happen, HaShem helped me to get something better. “Now I realize that God protected me from a terrible business/job/shidduch, etc.”

This is a critical attitude to cultivate in life. Knowing that (or even: strategically acting as if… ) when what I pray for is not happening, ultimately, something better might be waiting for me around the corner.

9. Hanukka and The First Independent Jewish State

Shimon and the First Independent Jewish State

During these days of Hanukka, I have tried to convey to my readers that the miracle of Hanukka extends beyond the small jar of oil that lasted eight days. This Providential event marked the beginning of a 23-year period, from 165 BCE to 142 BCE, in which our ancestors, the Hashmonayim, defeated the Greek invaders and their Jewish Hellenized allies, culminating in the establishment of the first independent Jewish state! This story, where miracles combine with unparalleled bravery, is unfortunately not well-known despite its relevance in our times.

Let us now explore the final chapter of the epic saga that we commemorate during Hanukka.

Why Yonatan Does Not Conquer Jerusalem

After the deaths of Eleazar, Yohanan, and Yehuda in battle, only two of the five Hashmonayim brothers remained: Yonatan and Shimon. Yonatan assumed leadership and, after two years of struggle, managed to expel the powerful Seleucid general Bacchides from Israel. However, to everyone’s surprise, when Bacchides fled Israel in 159 BCE, Yonatan did not immediately attempt to reclaim Jerusalem. Instead, he settled in Michmash and became the de facto leader of the Jewish people. But what was Yonatan doing in Michmash, and why didn’t he liberate Jerusalem immediately?

Yonatan spent seven years recruiting and training a powerful Jewish army of 40,000 soldiers capable of confronting invading forces and defending the Jewish people. This marked the first time in centuries that the Jewish people had an army of such magnitude. Now, Seleucid emperors—or those vying for the throne—not only sought to avoid conflict with Yonatan and his army but also competed to offer the Jews material benefits in exchange for Yonatan’s support.

The Importance of Having an Strong Army

At the time, the Seleucid king was Demetrius Soter. However, a young adventurer from Smyrna, Alexander Balas, claiming to be the son of Antiochus Epiphanes, challenged Demetrius and started a civil war for the throne. Both Demetrius and Balas offered various concessions to the Jewish army support. Yonatan sided with Alexander Balas, who eventually defeated Demetrius. Once this occurred, and with the support of the new emperor, now his ally, Yonatan entered Jerusalem without resistance during the festival of Sukkot in 152 BCE and was appointed as the High Priest (Cohen Gadol).

This event was, in every sense, a second Hanukka, as Jerusalem had been under Hellenist control for nine years, and the Bet haMiqdash had been desecrated and used once again as a pantheon for Greek gods. However, a few years later, Demetrius II, the son of Demetrius Soter, defeated Balas and reclaimed the Seleucid throne. Surprisingly, the new king, far from seeking revenge against Yonatan, recognized the importance of having the Jewish army on his side and offered him even more privileges than his predecessor.

The Peace Agreement

Conflicts among Seleucid leaders persisted. Now, Tryphon, a powerful Greek general, sought to usurp the throne from Demetrius II. In 143 BCE, Tryphon arrived in Israel with 30,000 soldiers, intending to retaliate against Yonatan, defeat him, and weaken Demetrius. Tryphon deceived Yonatan by inviting him to Acco for peace talks. When Yonatan arrived, Tryphon killed him.

After Yonatan’s death, the leadership of Judea passed to his younger brother, Shimon. With the powerful army Yonatan organized, Shimon fought, defeated, and expelled Tryphon from Eretz Israel.

The State of Israel

Shimon continued working toward the ultimate aspiration of the Hashmonayim and the entire nation of Israel. He fortified Jerusalem and strengthened his army, and in 142 BCE, 23 years after the great rebellion of Matityahu and his sons, the grand dream became a reality. In the Bet haMiqdash, in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Shimon, son of Matityahu Hashmonayi and the sole survivor of the five brave brothers, declared the establishment of an independent Jewish state in the land of Israel: Judea יהודה.

On the day the new Jewish state was established, Shimon declared these immortal words, still relevant to Medinat Israel today:

“We have not taken a foreign land, nor have we seized property that is not ours. We have reclaimed the inheritance of our ancestors, which was unjustly taken by our enemies. And when we had the opportunity and the strength to do so, we recovered our freedom.”

“לא ארץ נכריה לקחנו, ולא ברכוש נכרים משלנו – כי אם נחלת אבותינו, אשר בידי אויבינו בעת מן העיתים בלא משפט נכבשה. ואנחנו כאשר הייתה לנו עת, השיבונו את נחלת אבותינו“
(Sefer Hashmonayim I, Chapter 15, Verses 34–35)

The new state was immediately recognized by Demetrius II, who, for the first time, exempted the Jews from paying taxes to the Seleucid Empire. Shimon was assassinated in 135 BCE and succeeded by his son Yohanan Hyrcanus, who continued to lead the Jewish people and expand the territory of Judea. The fledgling State of Israel endured, with its ups and downs, for nearly 100 years.

VAYISHLACH: Shimon, Levi and the Israeli Army

ABRAHAM AND ISAAC

At the beginning of Jewish history, when we were not yet a people or even a tribe, but merely a small nuclear family, a painful pattern repeated itself more than once: abuse. Our first two patriarchs, Abraham and Isaac, had to face existential threats when, due to drought and famine, they left their place of residence and became vulnerable refugees. When Abraham emigrated to Egypt, he knew that the locals might kill him in order to seize his wife Sarah. That is why he had to pretend she was his sister. Abraham had cut ties with his family in Haran; he did not belong to a powerful nation nor did he have a large extended family. There was no one who could defend him or avenge his blood if he was attacked. He was completely vulnerable. Abusable. The same thing happened in another city, Gerar, and it was repeated a generation later with Isaac. He too had to hide that Rivka was his wife. God intervened directly and protected our matriarchs.

Abuse, which in its extreme expression—taking women by force—had sentenced the generation of the flood to extinction, remained present. Apparently, Sodom and Gomorrah were not the only places where foreigners were abused: the complete lack of basic human rights for the poor and the refugee was the rule, not the exception.

Incidentally, in light of this terrible normalization of the abuse of the unprotected in that era, we can better appreciate the extraordinary revolution of the Tora, which commands not only not to abuse but to “love the foreigner,” to actively care for the non-Jew—the ger toshab—who comes to seek refuge in our land. This mitsva constitutes a total inversion of the moral order of the ancient pagan world, where the law of the jungle prevailed.

JACOB

In this week’s Parasha we read about an episode that is not identical but very similar, which happened with Jacob. When our third patriarch and his family arrived in Shekhem, the powerful local prince took Dina, Jacob’s daughter, carried her off, abused her, and held her by force.

Jacob did not react. He was obviously devastated but remained passive, like his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham. Perhaps he was afraid to react because he knew the enemy had a numerical advantage. Or perhaps he thought that, just as had happened with his ancestors, direct Divine intervention was imminent. But there was no Divine intervention. God did not appear in dreams to Hamor or to his son to warn them not to touch Jacob’s daughter.

Two of Jacob’s sons, however, did react. They understood perfectly that the law of the fittest prevailed in the Middle East and that they could not survive if they showed weakness. It was also unrealistic to passively expect miracles. Ein somkhim al hanes: “miracles are not guaranteed.” The rules of the game had changed—perhaps because now they were able to defend themselves.

Through a cleverly planned strategy, they deceived the aggressors, incapacitated them, attacked them by surprise, destroyed the city, and rescued their sister Dina.

Jacob, surprised by his sons’ unprecedented military operation, reproached them for what they had done. He feared retaliation from the neighboring peoples, who were far more numerous than his family. But the military operation of Shimon and Levi produced an unexpected effect. The Tora states explicitly that a “Divine fear” (hittat Eloqim) took hold of the neighboring peoples and dissuaded them from attacking Jacob’s sons. That supernatural, miraculous fear made the locals feel that the Jews were unpredictable and that it was not wise to mess with them. God’s more subtle intervention manifested itself, but only once they had acted.

SHIMON AND LEVI

Abraham had a very small family: three people. Isaac, four. Neither of them could do without direct Divine intervention to rescue their wives; they simply did not have the minimum number of people required to do so.

Shimon and Levi, on the other hand, were fully aware that although the enemy possessed a numerical advantage, defeating them was possible. They had such strong self-esteem and emunah that they launched into combat even without the help of their other brothers, who remained waiting in the rear.

Shimon and Levi represent the new generation: a generation that does not surrender to abuse and uses intelligence to compensate for numerical disadvantage, defending itself with determination.

They did not wait passively for miracles; instead, they sought another type of Divine intervention—one that accompanies the military operation, not one that replaces it.

And in the long term, this became the normal modus operandi of Divine intervention in the fights of the people of Israel against their enemies. As the Tora states unambiguously (Devarim 20:4):

כִּי ה׳ אֱלֹ-הֵיכֶם הַהֹלֵךְ עִמָּכֶם לְהִלָּחֵם לָכֶם עִם־אֹיְבֵיכֶם לְהוֹשִׁיעַ אֶתְכֶם

HaShem will go with you (holekh imakhem) when you go out to fight against your enemies, and He will grant you victory.

Help comes once Israel defends itself, goes out to battle, and refuses to become a victim.

MEDINAT ISRAEL

It is impossible to ignore the parallel between what happened with Shimon and Levi and what is happening today in Medinat Israel.

Shimon and Levi represent a generational change: they are the brave young men who have lost the fear of confronting the enemy, who are no longer a defenseless minority, and who use not only their strength but also their Jewish intelligence to defeat those who seek our destruction.

A final reflection, somewhat interpretative:

Shimon represents among the tribes the least observant one, as we see in the Tora, especially in the episode of Bil‘am.

Levi represents the opposite: it is the most observant tribe, the one that will give rise to the Kohanim who will serve in the Bet HaMiqdash, but when there is a war of survival (milchemet mitsva), they join the army. And Shimon and Levi are fighting together!

In post–October 7 Israel, a very significant social and cultural process is taking place: more and more young religious haredim, who study Tora, prepare themselves in academies or technological institutes with professional careers. And also, little by little, more of them are enlisting in the army, especially in special units where religious observance is stricter.

According to Shlomo Filber, a demographic analyst, although the haredi population today in Israel constitutes around 15%, its demographic growth is, B”H, the highest in the Western world, with more than six children per family (see here Filber’s article).

According to Filber, the new Israeli army, in the coming years, will have at least 50% religious soldiers—dati leumi and haredi. That is, it will be a modern version of the partnership between Shimon and Levi.

Like Jacob’s family, Israel is growing demographically in a miraculous way, and its army is preparing to incorporate thousands of young scholars of Tora who understand that they must defend their “families” and that Divine intervention will accompany them and grant them victory when they face their enemies.

The Israel Defense Forces in the immediate future will not only be “an army with more Jews,” but “an army with more Judaism.”

8. The Miracle of Jewish Resilience

THE END OF YEHUDA MACABEE

General Lysias arrived in Antiochia, the capital of the Seleucid kingdom, defeated Philipus, and became the regent of the 9-year-old king Antiochus V. This situation was highly favorable for the Jews but only lasted for a couple of years. In 161 BCE, general Demetrius Soter killed Lysias and the young emperor Antiochus. Demetrius resumed the military campaigns against Judea, seeking to conquer Jerusalem and appoint his allies, the Hellenistic Jews, in a position of power. Demetrius sent his best general, Bakchides, with 20,000 men and 2,000 riders to kill Yehuda the Macabbee and end the Jewish rebellion. Bakchides did not arrive by sea, as Greek troops usually did, but reached by land from the Northwest, taking Yehuda by surprise. With a small local army of 800 men, Yehuda was defeated and killed. The consequences for the Jews were disastrous. Josephus Flavius writes that the new anti-Jewish decrees and persecutions of faithful Jews carried out by Demetrius were more intense and brutal than in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. The Greeks wanted not only to reconquer Judea but also to take revenge on the Jewish fighters.

Bakchides enforced Greek laws in Jerusalem and nominated a corrupt priest, Alqimos, to manage the Temple. In his first official act as High Priest, Alqimos publicly executed 60 rabbis. Thousands of Jews were killed or taken as slaves under Bakchides’ rule. Without Yehuda Maccabee, without a Jewish army, without Jerusalem and the Bet haMiqdash, it seemed that the rebellion that had begun with Matitiyah seven years earlier had come to a tragic end.

BETRAYAL

Some miracles, like the oil that lasted for eight days, are a matter of exclusive Divine intervention. And there are other miracles where Divine intervention is combined with human courage, strength, and greatness.

The following is the sort of human miracle that happened with Yehuda’s surviving brothers: Yochanan, Shimon and Yonatan.

Along with the few surviving Jewish fighters, they decided to not give up: they will keep fighting for their children. Yonatan took over the leadership of the military resistance and began to plan his subsequent attacks against the powerful Bakchides. Bakchides, on the other hand, mounted a search campaign seeking to kill the Jewish fighters. He offered a big reward for the heads of the Hasmoneans and their families.

To confront the Greeks, Yonatan decided to replicate the early tactics of Yehuda’s fighters: avoid direct confrontation with the Greeks and instead attack them by surprise. Yonatan fled to the Judean desert near Tekoa, where his men could hide in caves. However, climbing the mountains and accessing the hidden caves was arduous and dangerous. Yonatan and his men could access the caves, but the fighters’ families – women and children – could not.

Yonatan decided to rely on Yehuda’s allies and enemies of the Seleucides: the Nabateans. The Nabateans were nomadic people who lived in the Arabian Peninsula and had forged a military alliance with Yehuda. They agreed to shelter Yonatan’s fighters’ families. Yonatan sent the women and children to the Nabateans with his brother Yochanan and a few soldiers. But the Nabateans, driven by the attractive reward offered by Bakchides, betrayed Yonatan, and tragically, they killed Yochanan, the women, and the children… Only one soldier escaped the massacre and brought the tragic news to the Jews hiding in Tekoa.

WHAT WAS THE WORST MOMENT IN JEWISH HISTORY?

For seven days, Yonatan and his men mourned and wept bitterly over the death of their wives and children. It is impossible to imagine the feelings of the Jewish warriors. The strongest motivation for men to risk their lives in battle is the knowledge that they are fighting for their families and that one day they will return home to their wives and children. But now that they were all killed, why and for whom should Yonatan’s men fight?

Everything indicated that they would give up their fight. This may have been the most critical moment in the history of the people of Israel. Our people’s future and our religion’s survival were in the hands of a handful of men who lost hope because their families were murdered in cold blood. The Hellenists seemingly had won. Traditional Judaism would disappear and be replaced by a Greek/secular version of Judaism: a predecessor of Christianity.

RISING FROM THE ASHES

Miraculously, Yonatan vowed to keep fighting. He drew strength from his faith in the Creator and his love for the Tora. He rose from mourning, removed the ashes from his head, and decided that the rebellion against the Greek oppressors would continue while he was alive. First, he carried out a surprise attack against the Nabatean. In doing so, he followed in the footsteps of Dina’s brothers, Shimon and Levi, who punished the city of Shekhem. The enemy would now know that whoever betrayed Yonatan and the Jews would suffer the consequences and be reached by the long arm of their Jewish army. Then, Yonatan dedicated himself to recruiting more Jewish fighters from the village to start a war of attrition against Bakchides’ army. For two years, from 161 BCE to 159 BCE, the improvised Jewish army did what Yehuda had done at the beginning of the resistance: they attacked by surprise small Greek troops and their supplies, mainly under cover of darkness.

THE WITHDRAWAL OF BAKCHIDES

In 159 BCE, general Bakchides got tired from fighting the Jews. He was frustrated at his inability to capture Yonatan and the constant attacks against his troops. He also realized that the war against the Jews – even if he were to win – would not result in any significant prestige for himself. In the eyes of the Greek Empire, he was in Judea to punish a handful of insurgents. Seen no glory for him in this endeavor, Bakchides left the land of Israel and set his eyes on fighting other battles easier to win, and that would advance his military career. Thus, Yonatan, Shimon, and the Jewish soldiers again achieved a great victory against the Greeks. Jerusalem –ruled by Hellenist Jews– was now within reach, and the Bet haMiqdash was ready for a second Hanukka. But surprisingly and seemingly against all logic, Yonatan did not rush to conquer Jerusalem, as Yehuda had done previously in 165 BCE. Instead, Yonatan settled in the city of Mikhmash for seven years.

Why? We will find out BH in our next chapter

7. Was this the greatest miracle of Hanukka?

ELEPHANTS JOIN THE BATTLE

The miracle of the oil that lasted for eight days was not the last Providential act of Hanukka. Although they were already expelled from Jerusalem, the Hellenistic Jews and the non-Jews living in Israel did not give up in their fight to reform Judaism and asked the Seleucids for support to regain control over Jerusalem and the Temple. General Lysias, who was now closer to Antiochus and far more powerful than before, decided to put an end to “the Jewish problem” once and for all. According to the historian Josephus Flavius, Lysias’ orders to his soldiers were precisely these: “Conquer Judea, destroy Jerusalem, enslave the survivors and eliminate the Jewish nation from the face of the earth.” In an unprecedented action, Lysias sent 100,000 soldiers and 20,000 horse riders —an astonishingly large army even in terms of today— to finish off Yehuda Maccabi and his rebels.

Additionally, for the first time in the Land of Israel, the Greek armies arrived with African elephants: 32 animals specially trained for battle. Each elephant carried several soldiers armed with bows, arrows, and spears. And the elephants were protected by dozens of foot soldiers. Lysias came from the South and was getting ready to surround Jerusalem when Yehuda heard of his arrival. The Jews realized that it would be impossible to defeat this mighty army.

THE DEATH OF ELAZAR

The only chance left to the Jews was to eliminate Lysias and thus sow confusion and chaos in the ranks of the Greek army. Yehuda entrusted this delicate “suicide mission” to his brother Elazar, who did not hesitate to accept it. Elazar had to identify the elephant that was best protected and assume that Lysias would be there. With great bravery, Elazar and his men overcame the barrier of soldiers who guarded one of the elephants and pierced the animal with a spear. The elephant, tragically, collapsed on Elazar and killed him (today, in the area where this battle took place – Bet Zekharia, in Gush Etzion – there is a small settlement called Elazar in his honor). Yehuda realized that he had exhausted all his resources. He could not face the army of Lysias, who emerged unscathed from the frustrated attack attempt in which Elazar lost his life. Yehuda had no choice but to entrench himself in Yerushalayim, resist and die fighting to the end. It was the month of Shebat, the year 164 BCE. Lysias began the siege of Jerusalem with his 120,000 soldiers. Yehuda had only between 2,000 to 3,000 soldiers with him. After conquering Jerusalem, he declared victory over the Seleucids, ended the war, and sent thousands of his fighters back home.

WAS THIS THE GREATEST MIRACLE OF HANUKKA?

Lysias began his attack on Jerusalem. The Jews tried to resist, but the Jewish forces grew weaker and weaker little by little. The end was imminent. I imagine the brave Yehuda and his soldiers debating whether they should fight to the death, surrender and be sold as slaves, or perhaps take their own lives. There was nothing more for them to do. The end or the surrender of Yehuda and his men also meant the end of Judaism as we know it.

But on the 22nd of Shebat, 164 B.C.E., something extraordinary and miraculous happened. Lysias and his colossal army suddenly disappeared. No one understood what was happening until they heard the news: Antiochus died in Antiochia (Turkey). His son, Antiochus V, who was at the time nine years old, was going to be the next emperor. And his deceased father assigned Lysias to be his son’s regent (guardian), which would make him de facto the new emperor until the child came of age. Now, while Lysias and his army were in Judea, Philippus, a prominent general in Antiochus’ army, declared himself the regent of little Antiochus V and took control of the capital city. Lysias, therefore, had to leave Jerusalem immediately without any delay. In this surprising and miraculous way, right before Lysias took Jerusalem, the Jews were saved from a massacre.

AND THEN MORE

But that was not all. Right before leaving Jerusalem, Lysias left a letter to Yehuda. First, he told the Jewish leader that he canceled all the anti-Jewish decrees established by Antiochus. Why? Because in antiquity, the norm was that any laws and ordinances set by a King expired with his death unless the new monarch wished to renew them. Lysias assured Yehuda that the Jews would be left alone, but in return, Lysias asked Yehuda for a small favor: to send him some of his brave combatants and enlist them in his army to help him defeat Filippo in Antioquia. Yehuda accepted. In this miraculous way, Yerushalayim and the people of Israel were saved again by the invisible hand of God.

PS: It is worth clarifying that the 22nd of Shebat was celebrated as a holiday for about 230 years until the destruction of the Bet HaMiqdash in the year 68 of the common era. After the destruction of the Temple, Judea lost its independence and became a Roman province, and it was impossible then to celebrate a military, national victory. .

6. The Most Beautiful Unknown Story of Hanukka

This is the story of one of Yehuda Maccabee’s battles, likely unknown to most readers, which I only recently learned about by reading the Book of Maccabees directly. The most chilling aspect of this story is its relevance to the present — specifically, to Israel and the Jewish world in 2023 and 2024. In this story, there is an invincible Jewish army achieving crushing victories over its enemies and the ensuing adverse reaction of the gentile world to Israel’s victories. This resentment towards the Jew’s triumphs in Judea translated into antisemitic hostility against the Jews in the diaspora. What happened then is SO similar to what happens today that it’s frightening. And then there is the “icing on the cake”: what Yehuda Maccabee does in an extraordinary act worthy of Moshe, Yehoshua, or the Messiah. Something, in some form, I wish will be repeated in our days. I would have loved to expand on this story and delve into each sentence to show the reader the parallels between the past stories of the Hashmonayim battles and the present of Israel. But I will resist this temptation and leave that task to the reader. With much emotion and admiration for our Maccabean heroes, I share with you the most beautiful unknown story of Hanukka.

Israel. 164, BCE. The neighboring gentile nations witnessed the Jewish army’s incredible triumphs and their overwhelming victory over the Great Seleucid Empire. They were not pleased. But they knew that the Jews were too strong to confront directly.

The Jewish triumphs made them thirsty for Jewish blood, and they needed a weaker, more accessible target. The natural candidates to channel their resentment were obviously the Jews of the diaspora.

A tremendous wave of Antisemitism erupted, among other places, in the region of Gilead (today, northern Jordan), where tens of thousands of Jews lived. The massacres began, and the Giladites Jews were forced to entrench themselves in fortresses.

Desperate and terrified, they sent an urgent message to Yehuda HaMaccabee.

“Our gentile neighbors — the Ammonites — are organizing an attack against us, led by General Timotheus. We are trapped in the Gilead fortress, under siege, and they are preparing to enter and kill us. They have already killed a thousand Jewish men and taken their wives and children captive. Please help us and save us before it is too late!”

Yehuda and his men had just rededicated the Temple and experienced the well-known miracle of Hanukka (one small jar of oil could keep the Menorah ablaze for eight whole days) when they received this message.

He immediately took eight thousand men and, joined by his brother Yehonatan, headed Eastward to help his fellow Jews in Gil’ad.

They traveled over three days— crossing the Jordan River, tracking through the desert for 150 kilometers— and were exhausted. They encountered the Nabateans, a nomadic tribe, who confirmed the desperate situation of the Jews in Gilead and informed Yehuda that Timotheus indeed planned on destroying the Jewish fortresses and massacring all the trapped victims –the very next day!

Without pausing for a break, Yehuda and his men reached the city of Bozrah and found the enemy soldiers carrying ladders and battering rams on their way to kill the Jews. In Maccabean custom, Yehuda and his men blew their Shofarot, called out to God for Divine assistance, and bravely charged into battle. When Timotheus’ men heard that the famous Yehuda HaMaccabee had come to fight against them, they dropped all weapons and fled for their lives.

Yehuda pursued them and killed thousands and then proceeded to strengthen the other cities in the Gilead. Timotheus assembled a much larger army, hiring local Arab mercenaries to bolster his forces, and stationed them by a turbulent and dangerous river. The Jewish army approached from the other side, and Yehuda led the way, crossing the river without hesitation or fear, and his men followed. When seeing this, Timotheus’ men, taken aback by the Maccabean bravery, abandoned their weapons and fled in fear.

But our Maccabees were not done yet. They knew further action needed to be taken in order to permanently save their brothers, who were constantly vulnerable to enemy attacks.

Yehuda made a wise and historic decision: he gathered the Jews of Gilead and led them back to the land of Israel.

They crossed the Jordan River together, as Yehoshua Bin Nun had once done, and embarked on a journey reminiscent of our Exodus from Egypt. The Jews crossed the Judean desert until they reached Bet She’an and the fortified cities in Israel, where fellow Jews joyfully welcomed the Olim Chaddashim (new Jewish immigrants) back home.

Their next stop was the Bet HaMikdash, the Holy Temple, where the newcomers offered sacrifices to God and thanked their Creator for saving them from certain death and for protecting Yehuda’s army, which had miraculously suffered no casualties.

“And Yehuda gathered all Israel who were in Gilead, from the smallest to the largest, along with their wives, children, and belongings, forming a vast camp to return to the land of Judea. And they crossed the Jordan into the great valley before Bet She’an. Yehuda gathered all the stragglers and encouraged the people throughout the journey until they arrived in Judea. They ascended Mount Zion with joy.”

HEBREW:

Excerpt from the Original Hebrew Text and Translation:

Maccabees, Chapter 5

“In the morning, [Yehuda and his men] lifted their eyes and saw a countless multitude carrying ladders and machines to capture the fortress and fight against the Jews… Yehuda said to his soldiers: ‘Fight today for our brothers!’ He went out with three groups behind them, blew the shofarot, and cried out to Heaven in prayer. When Timotheus’ camp knew it was the Maccabee, they fled from him, and he struck them with a great defeat.”

“And Yehuda gathered all Israel who were in Gilead, from the smallest to the largest, along with their wives, children, and belongings, forming a very large camp to return to the land of Judea.”

“And they crossed the Jordan into the great valley before Bet She’an. Yehuda gathered all the stragglers and encouraged the people throughout the journey until they arrived in Judea. They ascended Mount Zion with joy.”

Excerpts from the Original Hebrew Text and Translation:

Maccabees, Chapter 5

5. Recovering Jerusalem and Rededicating the Temple

AN INVINCIBLE ARMY?
When the Seleucid general Lysias learned of the defeat of his generals by the Jewish rebels led by Yehudah Macabi (see here), he assembled a huge army –60,000 soldiers and 5,000 horseback riders– to defeat the Jewish insurgency. Yehudah managed to recruit 10,000 soldiers with a lot of effort, but when they heard that this sizeable Greek army was coming, they were terrified. Yehudah Maccabi encouraged them by reminding them of how HaShem delivered Goliath, a powerful man of immense stature, into the hands of King David. He also told them how the Almighty gave the victory in the battle of Michmash to Yonatan, the son of King Shaul, who, despite being outnumbered and having practically no weapons, defeated the numerous Philistine armies. Inspired by his faith in the Almighty, Yehudah and his soldiers launched a surprise attack that left 5,000 Greek soldiers dead and the enemy army demoralized. At this point, general Lysias understood that the fight against Yehudah’s army would not be easy. Also, at the same time, he received a message requesting that he travel to Antioch, where Emperor Antiochus, who had fallen ill, needed military reinforcements. The next day, the Jewish soldiers watched with surprise, and immense joy as Lysias’s great army retreated.

THE GOAL: JERUSALEM:
Yehudah gathered his men, and they prayed to God in gratitude for the miraculous victory. Yehudah said: “We have seen how God delivered our enemies into our hands. It is time to embark on our main mission: reconquering Jerusalem.” When the corrupt high priest (Cohen Gadol) Menelaus and his accomplices heard that Yehudah was approaching Jerusalem and that his allies, the Greeks, had withdrawn, they fled to a Greek fortress. Yehudah reached the Holy City without meeting any resistance. The Jews entered the Bet haMiqdash and were horrified by the terrible desecrations that had taken place there. Those corrupted Jews, who had become activists for the enemy, built a pantheon of pagan idols in the Bet HaMiqdash and erected a statue of Zeus next to the Holy Altar (mizbeach), which meant that sacrifices were offered to these idols pagans. On that very altar, they discovered the corrupt priests had lit a great fire in which they burned all the Torah Scrolls that were stored in the Temple.

FROM TEARS TO CELEBRATION
Seeing the horrible desecration of the Holy Sanctuary, Yehudah and his men tore their clothes in mourning and began to cry bitterly. Yehudah turned to his warriors and told them: “This is not the time to cry, but to build and celebrate.” And so the Jews began the task of purifying the Temple. They rebuilt the altar and prepared the vessels and artifacts of the Sanctuary for its reopening. However, despite searching every corner of the Temple, they could not find ritually pure oil that could be used to light the Menorah, the golden lamp that was permanently lit in the Temple, indicating that the Temple was functioning and at the service of the God of Israel. This particular olive oil could only be obtained in the north, in the area of the Asher tribe. Producing and transporting the new oil would take more than a week. And if the Menora was not going to be lit, did it make sense to inaugurate the Temple now?

THE OIL THAT LASTED LONGER
Providentially, the Yehudim found a small container with pure oil, but the amount was only enough to keep the Menorah burning for one day. They inaugurated the Temple anyways and lit the Menorah, if only for the first day of the inauguration. The Bet haMiqdash was reopened in the service of God on the 25th day of Kislev in the year 165 B.C.E. Every day that passed, the priests checked the Menorah, sure that they would have to clean it and remove the extinguished wicks and leave the Bet HaMiqdash without light. But to everyone’s surprise, the candles stayed lit for eight days, precisely the time it took for the new oil to arrive. Thus, the Jews continued the celebration of the Bet HaMiqdash’s dedication, just as they did at the Tabernacle (Mishkan) inauguration, which the Jews built in the desert after leaving Egypt.

FOR POSTERITY
What happened to the oil of the Menorah is the best-known miracle of the time of the Hashmonayim and is why we light candles for eight days. The Jews saw the miracle of the oil as a sign of Divine Intervention in their fights against a superior enemy and as a confirmation that the Almighty accompanied them in all their actions. The Sages of Israel established that, from then on, every year, on Kislev 25, Jewish families would remember the miracle of Hanukka. Since those times, we light the Hanukka candles for eight days to remember the great miracles we experienced in the days of the Hashmonayim. The Sages also established the recitation of Hallel, to praise the Creator for our miraculous salvation. They also incorporated the prayer “al hanisim” in the Amida, to thank God for His intervention in the military triumph of the Jews against their enemies.

4. The beginning of the Jewish rebellion

THE BEGINNING OF THE JEWISH REBELLION

In 167 BCE, Matitiyahu and his sons Eleazar, Yehuda, Shimon, Yochanan, and Yehonatan led a rebellion known as the Mered HaHashmonayim against the Seleucid Greek army of Antiochus Epiphanes, who had been executing those who practiced Judaism since 175BCE. The Jewish fighters, though courageous, were vastly outnumbered by the Greeks and lacked proper weapons and military training. Their strategy was to surprise smaller groups of Seleucid soldiers and then retreat to the mountains or desert, as a price had been placed on their heads.

FROM MATITIYAHU TO YEHUDA

After his father’s death, Yehuda, the third son of Matitiyahu, took command of the rebellion and began planning a more organized revolt to liberate Jerusalem and reclaim the Bet haMiqdash, the great Temple of Yerushalayim. Yehuda recruited as many Tora-faithful Jews as possible to join his army and primarily carried out attacks at night. In his first battle, Yehuda ambushed the Greek forces led by Apollonius, who had been sent by Antiochus with orders to suppress the rebellion and leave no survivors. However, Yehuda’s surprise attack proved successful, and the Greeks were easily defeated. It is said that Yehuda took Apollonius’s sword and used it for the rest of his life, much like King David did with the sword of Goliath.

THE BATTLE OF BET HORON

The Battle of Bet Horon began when Antiochus, learning of Apollonius’s defeat, sent General Seron and his significantly larger army to capture Yehudah and defeat the Jewish rebels. The men of Yehudah were initially frightened by the size of the Seleucid army, but Yehudah encouraged them to have faith in God and fight with courage. He reminded them that they were fighting for their people and their Law, while the Seleucids were motivated only by greed and pride. Inspired by Yehudah’s words, the Jewish soldiers fought with great bravery and defeated Seron, killing around 800 of his soldiers.

THE BATTLE OF EMAUS

The Battle of Emmaus took place after Seron’s defeat, when Antiochus Epiphanes sent Lysias and his massive army, consisting of 40,000 soldiers and 7,000 horsemen, to destroy Judea. The Seleucid army included three top generals: Nicanor, Ptolemy, and Gorgias. Nicanor, showing his arrogance, brought along slave traders to capture and sell the women and children of the Jews once the men had been killed. The Seleucids camped at Emmaus while the Jews hid in Mitzpah, fasting, reading the Tora, blowing the Shofar, and praying. Yehudah received important information from his spies that Gorgias had left the camp with 5,000 soldiers and 1,000 horsemen to try to capture Yehudah and his men, leaving the camp with fewer soldiers. Yehudah saw this as the perfect opportunity to attack by surprise and gathered his 3,000 men, dividing them into four battalions. At dawn, they attacked the Seleucids from all four sides, catching them off guard and causing panic. The Jews were able to defeat around 9,000 soldiers, and the survivors fled to the cities. Gorgias returned to find his camp destroyed and on fire, escaping with his soldiers.

BEST SHABBAT EVER

After this victory, the Jews returned to their desert hideouts, where they celebrated the best Shabbat ever, filled with prayers and songs of thanks to God for their miraculous victory. Everyone present expressed their gratitude and begged God to help them achieve their next goal: to liberate Jerusalem and rededicate the Bet haMiqdash to Divine service.

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HASIDIM RISHONIM

It is important to note that the Jewish soldiers were extremely pious. Historical sources call them “Hasidim” because they were willing to sacrifice their lives in order to keep their religious principles. I will quote from the Book of the Maccabees to show how this battle is described, and I want you to see the acts of Tsedaqa the soldiers of Yehuda performed with the war booty, which they distributed among the poor, the orphans, and the widows—something completely unprecedented in the pagan military world.

TEXT FROM HASHMONAYIM

וא–ל ש–די היה להם לעזר, ויכו מן האויבים יותר מתשעת אלפים, וגם פצועים ומושחתים היו ברוב חיל ניקנור, ואת כלם הניסו ואת הבאים לקנותם לקחו מהם את כספם, וירדפו אחריהם דרך רב, וישובו, כי השעה דחקתם. כי ערב שבת היה, ולא יכלו לרדף אחריהם עוד, וכאספם את הנשק, וכפשטם את השלל מעל האויבים, ויקבילו את השבת ויודו וישבחו לה‘ אשר הושיעם ביום ההוא, ויראם ראשית חסדו. ואחר השבת חילקו מן השלל לפצועים ולאלמנות וליתומים, ואת השאר חילקו ביניהם ובין בניהם, ואחרי עשותם הדבר הזה התפללו בציבור, ויתחננו אל א-להי הרחמים להתנחם על עבדיו עד הסוף

English Translation

“And God Almighty helped them, and they struck down more than nine thousand of the enemy… many of Nicanor’s soldiers were wounded and disabled, and they put them all to flight. Those who had come to buy them [as slaves]—they took their money from them. They chased the enemy for a long distance, but they had to return because time was pressing them. It was the eve of Shabbat, and they could not continue the pursuit.

They gathered the weapons and took the spoil from the enemies. They then welcomed the Shabbat, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, who had saved them that day and shown them the beginning of His kindness.

After Shabbat, they distributed part of the booty to the wounded, the widows, and the orphans, and the rest they divided among themselves and their children. After doing this, they prayed together and begged the God of mercy to grant comfort to His servants until the end.”
(Maccabees II, 8:8–25)

3. How do You Provoke a Jewish Rebellion?

כתבו על קרן השור אין לנו חלק באלוקי ישראל

“Write on the ox horn that we have no part in the God of Israel.” (Jerusalem Talmud, Hagiga 2: 2).

HORNS AND BABY BOTTLES

Antiochus, the Greek (Seleucid) Monarch obsessed with Jews practicing Judaism, issued a decree: Jews must “write on the horns of their oxen ‘We have no part in (that is,” we no longer belong to”) the God of Israel.'” I confess that for years I did not understand the logic of this decree: Why was it essential to the Greeks that the Jews wrote that statement specifically on the horns of their animals? A couple of years ago, I found an excellent explanation attributed to Rabbi Yechezkel Abramski (z”l), that clarified the nature of this cruel decree. In ancient times, horns were used as baby bottles! The hollow horn was filled with milk and used to feed the babies who drank through the small hole at the narrow end of the horn, covered with leather to make it more comfortable for the baby to drink. Horns were used for this purpose at least until the end of the Middle Ages. Now we can better appreciate the nature of this edict. The Greeks demanded that the Jews “decorate” their baby’s bottles with the explicit declaration that they rejected the God of Israel and affirmed their “exclusive” loyalty to Antiochus.

BRAINWASHING BABIES?

In this utterly brutal way, the Greeks expected Jews to be re-educated from the cradle to leave the Tora and adopt the Hellenic culture and religion. Why was Antiochus so obsessed with the Jews and God? Because Jewish monotheism was an impediment for the Jews to recognize Antiochus as the supreme authority and a god. Antiochus called himself “Epiphanes”, a deity, a man in whom Divinity is manifested. That helps explain why Antiochus obsessively insisted that Jews renounce their God from their infancy, under threat of death. For a long time, the Jews passively resisted Antiochus. They tried to observe the Tora in secret and discreetly, and many escaped to the desert and other unpopulated areas where they could serve God in hiding. Thousands chose death instead of worshiping idols, like Hanna, a widow tortured and executed with her seven children because she refused to abandon the God of Israel and His Tora. Jews believed that rebelling against the mighty Greeks was useless and that all they could do was to pray and wait for the death of Antiochus because in those times when the Monarch died, all his decrees were canceled.

THE END OF PASSIVE RESISTANCE

But Antiochus remained alive for many years, and the Jewish people’s history might have ended in the middle of the 2nd century BCE. But B”H the unthinkable happened: the Jews rebelled “militarily” against the Greeks.

This is how it all began: In 167 BCE, a delegation of gentile officers and Hellenistic Jews arrived at Modi’in and ordered Matitiyahu, the city’s leader, to show loyalty to Antiochus by offering a sacrifice to a pagan idol. These officers knew that once the Jewish leader obeyed these orders, all the other inhabitants of the city would follow his example. And if the Jewish leader refused to carry out these commands, they would kill him and appoint another leader who was more flexible to their demands. The Greek officers had already done this, city by city and village after village. And the result so far was that numberless Jews chose death (על קידוש השם) before worshiping idols. But in Modi’in, something different happened. Instead of giving up his life, Matitiyahu decided to fight. He took up arms and killed the Seleucid delegation and his five sons. This radical and heroic act, spontaneously led by Matitiyahu and his children, inspired the armed rebellion of the Jews against the mighty Greek Empire.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

Matitiyahu and his children called on their Jewish brothers to fight. But the Jews were not warriors like other peoples. They were peasants, farmers, or scholars with no experience in battle. And at that time, the army of Antiochus and his allies was the largest and most powerful in the world. From a rational point of view, the Jewish armed resistance against the Greeks was nonsense—a desperate and suicidal effort. No one thought that a small group of Jewish rebels without weapons or experience in battle had any chance of surviving when facing Antiochus’ army. Matitiyahu’s courage to fight and his unbreakable will to face enemies far more numerous and powerful than him eventually culminated in the miraculous Jewish victory we remember and celebrate on Hanukka.

It was the first time in history that people fought not to preserve their lives but to keep their values alive.

2. A War Against God

HELLENIZATION and ANTIOCHUS
After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, the Greek empire set out to impose its Hellenic culture peacefully and persuasively, not by force. They succeeded and caused most religions of antiquity to disappear, and this universal acculturation process became known as Hellenization. The spread of Greek cultural and religious ideas also affected the Jews. For example, those who lived outside Israel, in Alexandria, were the fastest to assimilate. It reached the point that some historians described it as “Hellenic Judaism,” a sort of syncretism between Jewish ideas and Hellenic culture practiced by many Jews of the diaspora. The Jews of Israel, however, still maintained their traditions and religion. However the rule of a new Hellenistic king, Antiochus Epiphanes, in 215 BCE worsened the situation for the Jews living in Israel. Antiochus was much more aggressive than his predecessors in his attempts to Hellenize all his subjects. Submitting to Antiochus’ pressure, some Jews completely assimilated into Hellenism and abandoned their parents’ religion. Others, especially those who lived in the big cities alongside non-Jews, began to practice Hellenized Judaism, one shaped in light of Greek values.
As it happened many times, the desire of these assimilated Jews was to be entirely accepted by the Gentiles, whom they looked up to with admiration. For example, the strict religious dietary rules observed by the Jews (Kashrut), created many obstacles to integrating assimilated Jews with Greek citizens. If a Jew could not share the table with his Gentile neighbors, the Gentiles would never accept Jews as their peers. The practice of Kashrut had to be eliminated because, in this new Hellenic world, barriers to integration with the hegemonic Greek culture were intolerable. Shabbat and circumcision were considered outdated and seen as rites that caused division between Jews and non-Jews. In addition to these rationales, many Hellenistic Jews justified their abandonment of Judaism by claiming that to survive, Judaism had to modernize itself. While all this was happening in the cities, many of the poorest Jews, peasants who lived in small villages isolated from Hellenized influence, remained faithful to the Tora.

THE REFORMS OF HASON AND MENELAO
King Antiochus Epiphanes knew that some Jews were still reluctant to abandon their old practices, and he set out to Hellenize them at any price. Why? Because although they were relatively few, the Jews who still observed the Tora were practically the only citizens of the empire who openly rejected Hellenism. Antiochus sought allies among the Jews to fight Jewish resistance to Hellenization, finding them among those who had Hellenized voluntarily. He was appointed High Priest for the Temple in Jerusalem, an assimilated and easily corruptible Jew, Hason (175 BCE). Hason was later on replaced with another fake High Priest, who turned out even worse for the Jews, Menelao (171 BCE). These “High Priests” in charge of the Jerusalem Temple led the reform to Hellenize Judaism and openly confronted the Jews who resisted it. Hason, for example, headed a delegation of assimilated Jews who, on Shabbat, went to the Olympic stadium to watch and participate in the games. These false priests overturned Jewish practices and religious principles and beliefs, such as Jewish monotheism. The doctrine of believing in one God was adapted to become more open: Hellenistic Jews recognized the Greek gods and accepted that the Greeks worshiped their gods in the Bet haMiqdash. Otherwise, the corrupt priests argued, the monotheistic “fanaticism” of the ancient Jews would offend the sensitivity of the Greeks. The Jews also had to be more “tolerant” and worship the Jewish God in a Greek fashion. This led to Menelaus desecrating the Jewish Altar in 170 BCE by offering a pig as a sacrifice in the Bet haMiqdash.

PROVOKING THE REBELLION
Although many Jews remained loyal to their faith, more and more Jews followed the path of the Greeks. But in 169 BCE, a providential event changed the course of history. Antiochus Epiphanes lost his patience with the few Jews who rejected assimilation and decided to cease attempting to Hellenize them gently. Instead, Antiochus officially forbade Jewish practice and imposed the death penalty for those who disobeyed him. Antiochus’ decrees had an effect contrary to what he wanted to achieve. The cruel rulings awakened the Jewish pride of even those slowly inclined towards assimilation. Jews across the country became shocked and angered. Unwittingly, Antiochus provoked what became known as the armed rebellion of the Hasmoneans, who fought against the Greeks and the Hellenized Jews. If Antiochus Epiphanes had not lost his patience, the assimilation of the Jews would have continued without resistance. Without this impetus, the Jewish people could have disappeared forever, integrating within the other nations of the Greek empire, as happened with most other civilizations of antiquity.
The impatience of Antiochus was providential and should be considered one of the miracles of Hanukka, which produced a wake-up call to the Jewish soul.